Our film begins with a husband and wife driving along a dark and isolated road late at night. Hubby and the missus are arguing, you see, and out in the middle of nowhere, hubby decides that it would be a good idea to pull over to talk things out. While they're trying to sort things out, something brushed against their car with enough force to rock it. There is also the noise of something sharp that is raked against the metal exterior of their car.

It is then revealed the hubby and the missus have a small child in the back seat of their fine automobile. Now, anyone with more than two functional brain cells would just take off. The car is in working order; there is virtually nothing to prevent hubby from simply driving away and getting his family out of there.

Nothing except for hubby's sheer stupidity, of course. Tbis is a Grade Z monster movie, after all.

Instead of driving off, protecting himself and his family, hubby gets out of the car to have a look see after the car is impacted again. As he walks around the car, he spots something that spooks him. Instead of getting into the car and driving away, he leans into the car asks the missus for a flashlight.

She gives it to him, and hubby is soon thereafter dispatched by whatever it is that lurks outside of the car.

Now, instead of heeding maternal instinct and driving away to protect their small child, the missus decides to get out of the car to see whom or what it was that did away with hubby. She finds the flashlight and picks it up. Instead of getting immediately back into the car to drive off and again, protect her only child, she looks around. Of course, she falls prey to whatever nabbed her hubby, leaving the small child in the backseat of the car to the care of some creature with scaly skin, huge hands, long fingers, and razor-sharp talking.

The movie goes downhill from there. Watch at your own peril. You'll wish Mr. Talons would have clawed your eyes out after you've watched this utter piece of trash.

I must admit that I was initially lured in by the movie's cover. Granted, I had never even heard about this 2017 movie prior to finding it by sheer random luck in 2019. And being a life-long horror fan, of course I sat down to watch "The Raking" as I was presented with a chance to do so.

I managed to endure just a bit more than an hour of this movie from director Bryan Brewer before I gave up. The movie was rather monotonous and failed to properly captivate me. There was just something way too generic and mundane about the storyline which was reminiscent of the horror movies that permeated the horror scene in the 1990s.

The one thing that the movie did manage to do well was the suspense with keeping the audience in the dark in terms of showing off the creatures and giving the audience information about what is really going on. But it just wasn't enough to make up for all the other shortcomings that the movie had from writers Bryan Brewer and Laura Greenman Heine.

"The Raking" was a weak horror movie, and there are far better horror movies readily available. And it scores a mere three out of ten stars rating from me, because the movie didn't have an interesting storyline and the characters were just too bland.

An ambitious project for sure, but you know when the director and writer also stars in the movie, then it is going to be one of those movies. Yeah, you know what I mean here.

The film opens with a Mercedes running out of gas on a back desert road attacked by the creature (Alan Maxson in a costume). There is a child in the back. The adult names are George and Carla, perhaps a tribute to George Carlin. Later at college, a group of diverse white students and their TA, Ethan Cooper (Bryan Brewster, director, writer, producer and basically guy to blame or praise) do a school project on urban legends. They choose to go on a camping trip at Joshua Tree because there is a legend that something happens in the desert to people at the equinox and the fact that is the trendy spot for low budget slasher films. Add a salty guy (Marshal Hilton) in a monster truck who helps them and I think you got the idea.

I will say the acting was better than most indie productions. Either Mr. Brewster has acting friends or decided to cast actors. The bar scene had the right amount of background noise, not using that canned crowded restaurant noise that never matches what is on the screen. I tend to notice dumb things like that and also one of the fast moving news articles claimed a "local Wichita boy" went missing. This is a Brain Damage film who started out making films too bad to watch. Apparently they learned from their errors and parlayed their earnings into better productions. Now many times directors place themselves into horror films, and where they die in the film is indicative of their ego.Just saying. Allie Rivera, co-producer played Jade,my favorite moody character contrasting Kennedy (Cree Kelly) and her own sister (Marisa Davila). A geek/nerd named Noah (Thatcher Robinson) rounds out the group.

Now the film claimed the equinox is an annual event. Before you kids tell your teacher that, it is not. It comes twice a year, spring and fall which is why they are called the vernal equinox and autumnal equinox. I'll let you figure out which is which.I thought the ending was ill conceived.

Guide: F-word. Sex. No nudity due to arm placement.